engine question

[Osella]

will any obsolete 3Litre V10 F1 engines get 'recycled' as sportscar motors one day?

[Nizro]

That's most unlikely.. actually it's more like a direct "no"...

The Formula 1 V10-engines are pushed to the extremes of what is possible. Bringing 900 bhps from 3 litres without any charging system is an extreme accomplishment, and it requires technology on a level that is not yet stable enough for any sort of endurance racing. The engines themselves are so very stressed, that what you see today in Formula 1 is the limit with the current level of technology.
Also, a lot of development goes into having a just somewhat stable engine, and this development will eventually go down into extremely high prices for these engines.

So... "no", I don't think that we'll see these engines go down into sportscar racing, and even if they do, it will be quite some time, 'cause I reckon having a stable engine redlining at 19,000 RPM will require a huge amount of research to be usefull. And now that it's no longer part of F1, who will put their time into this? But, I think that we will se an extreme advancement of the V8 engines in the next years, so who knows?

[im8457]

Originally Posted by Osella

will any obsolete 3Litre V10 F1 engines get 'recycled' as sportscar motors one day?

A Judd engine, the GV4 V10, is a F1 based and is used in some LMPs. Lola, Dome and Riley & Scott have all used them at one time.

[knighty]

Originally Posted by im8457

A Judd engine, the GV4 V10, is a F1 based and is used in some LMPs. Lola, Dome and Riley & Scott have all used them at one time.

The problem Judd have had for the past 5 years or so, is that the 4 litre V10 engine was too small in capacity, therefore had to rev the nuts out of it to get the power, about 630bhp over 10,000rpm I think - thats silly revs for an endurance engine, OK they had the odd 24hr win like at Daytona in 2001/2......but in short a 4 litre engine needs to rev very high and dosent have that much torque......then they stretched it to 5 litres and in my opinion its a much better engine, as proven by Pescarolo......the power is the same, but it makes the power at much lower revs - about 7000rpm I think......but the big gain has been in the increase in torque......which is what you need for pulling out of corners and hammering down the fast straights.......to answer the original question.......judd have proved that to make a decent sportscar engine from an F1 v10 motor you need a minimum of 5 litres.......stretch a modern-day F1 motor to 5 litres???.......absolutley no way .......if the ACO were to let standard or slightly stretched V10 motors into the LMP2 class that would be much more viable option.

[Tim Northcutt]

I believe ss_collins researched this and has made a compelling case for such a scenario...

Speaking of engines....

I'm still waiting for someone to either run a homologated GT2 engine (normally aspirated up to 4.0 L) in an LMP2, or better yet, for someone to take a WRC engine and drop it into an LMP2...like a Hyundai or a Subaru Turbo....

Both would seem to make good sense as being both cost effective as well as competitive...IMO

[ger80]

That GT2 and WRC are not build to be part of the chassis. LMP engines are used to take force through the engine from the front to the rear of the car.
Maybe someone who knows what i mean could write it in real english
Sunday morning ....

[JAG]

Personally I think the days of atmo engines are numbered in prototypes.

With state of the art turbo engines coming from AER and Cosworth, with better power/torque, fuel efficiency and driveability, why use a highly stressed F1 type motor?

[knighty]

Originally Posted by JAG

Personally I think the days of atmo engines are numbered in prototypes.

With state of the art turbo engines coming from AER and Cosworth, with better power/torque, fuel efficiency and driveability, why use a highly stressed F1 type motor?

You said it JAG - look back on the history of winners at lemans over the past 10 years, and the Turbo engines are the way to go......the last normally aspirated engine worth its salt was the 6 litre BMW V12......god knows why Judd went so long with the 4 litre.......

when I was at TWR race engines they had designed and built a V10 sports car engine in two capacities, 5 and 6 litre, they made an engine and dyno'd it, but did not find a backer - shame as it was a pukka piece of kit, as designed by Geoff Goddard.

I dont know the actual altitude distance, but the le-mans circuit is quite high up from sea level, so the air is thinner, and this really affects the power of normally aspirated engines - not so much turbos - I dont know the technical reasons why though - someone please educate me

as for subaru or hyundai WRC engines.....no way......you would be better off starting from scratch........

not all LMP1 & 2 engines are fully stressed.....the R8-V8 was, but most others run the A-frames, including the Judd V10, most prototype engines are termed "semi-stressed" whereby the engine takes some of the load but not all......I suspect this is why the new Audi V12 diesed is 90 degrees as the wider V-angle helps when fully stressing the engine.......as running extra A-frames with an already very heavy engine wil not help overall car weight

[vs346]

Originally Posted by knighty

I dont know the actual altitude distance, but the le-mans circuit is quite high up from sea level, so the air is thinner, and this really affects the power of normally aspirated engines - not so much turbos - I dont know the technical reasons why though - someone please educate me

The highest point in Le Mans is only 134 meters above sea level. I'm not sure that's high enough to affect an atmo engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mans

[Osella]

I'm also in need of education... Why couldn't a Judd motor be turbocharged? Is the layout of the 'big bits' of turbo and atmospheric powerplants fundamentally different?

[R59]

Since the original concept of this thread was whether the old 3L V10 F1 engines could find another use.

De-tuning (stressing) is always an option. I seem to remember the Asiatech V10's being made available "de-tuned" for various uses. Through the act of de- or should I say re-tuning, the max revs are probably dropped to about 10000, from 16000+, which will dramatically improve it's reliability/life, and consequently, the torque output of the engine will increase as the power is produced at fewer revs. Ultimate horsepower is reduced, but driveability is increased considerably.

As for turbocharging, why not. They'll require some uprated components most likely!!

Rob.

[belt driven]

I thought that incremental reductions on rev limits would have have been a less costly way to slow F1 cars that developing brand new 2.4L V8's. What are(were) the bore/stroke ratios of F1 V10's? I am guessing that an F1 V10 is way oversquare to make much torque at 10000 RPM.

ger80, the term I have always heard is "stressed member." McLaren used such in Can-Am 35 years ago. Imsa GTP cars 20+ years ago did not. Ferrari 333SP's just after that time did. Some series have required that the chassis be a "roller" w/o the engine. Keep in mind that a stressed engine in an F1 car carries much less weight than a prototype sports cars.

Does anyone know of an engine structure/chassis failure prior to a catastrophic accident in decades?